Man is Ex-Vegan...Thoughts?

The above website shows an interview of a guy who fell off the hclf vegan diet. My sister sent this to me trying to persuade me not to enter this lifestyle fully. I have no idea what to say back to her and honestly, I feel it's not worth my time to.

I'd appreciate any thoughts or facts you guys have on this, I really am stuck here!

It's difficult for me to assess how exactly I feel about this article. The man seems very angry a lot of times and some of his points are very opinionated. I guess this lifestyle just didn't work for him, but, as many people have said prior, we don't know exactly how he led the lifestyle while he was in it. There could be a lot of other factors that caused him to fall off the wagon, such as life stressors, family, friends, and just choices made in daily life.

When my sister sent me this link, I knew why she did. She's been trying to be the devil's advocate, finding different articles to prove to me that veganism is not a good idea (health wise) and more so hclf vegan. I didn't even want to read the article at first because I was so upset that my own sister will not support me in my pursuit of entering this lifestyle, when I KNOW that SO many people have benefited from it (and these people have been in this lifestyle for over 5 years, like freelee). Plus, although I'm not completely hclf right now, I AM vegan, and that alone has made me feel better - emotionally and physically - which I didn't really expect to be honest.

Nine times out of ten, when something doesn’t work suitably for one, but it does for the rest of the supporters/followers, there will always be considerable animosity towards the lot who greatly succeed and substantially thrive—isn’t that how the story goes?—for me, such has been vividly apparent in conversations [for the non 811ers—for the non vegans] I’ve had with my family, friends, clients, and the other lot I’ve met at grocery stores. Some will even voice such dumbfounded questions: “Isn’t that too much sugar?” and “Well, where do you get your protein?” It’s quite evident that our nutritional I.Q. is nowhere near where it should be in our society—in our culture—and perceptively, whatever one hears from their doctor, from the media, or what they’ve read in their magazines concerning what one should and shouldn’t do in regards to food—it will surely take the reigns and drive their cognizance awry—. [Ultimately], people like to hear good things about bad habits—we already know this.

In the light of your sister [is she older or younger?], a good way to put that entire scene to rest is to ask her if she will join you and go vegan for two whole weeks—now if I’m not mistaken, the omnivorous taste-buds will recycle themselves and become anew [after the fortnight has passed]—thus, she won’t miss nor have that wide-eyed craving for any animal products—with food, much of it [I feel] is mental—“I HAVE to eat MEAT to be healthy!”—then again, when one is consuming a fully SAD diet, it’s hard to arrive at those thoughts of well needed clarity to abandon it altogether. In doing so, her self-awareness will exceedingly soar! [So would she commit to such a task?—I hope so.] If you ask me, I feel that many live in fear when it comes to eating—always questioning if they’re going to get sick or face dis-ease head-on if they have this or if they don’t have that in their diet—just do your own personal research—if you hear something that makes sense, great!, but please take it one step further and critically analyze the material presented to you—that’s the trick to awareness—learning is understanding—understanding is learning—question everything!

With all that being said, I’m glad to hear that everything is proper for you in the land of compassionate food choices—in the land of veganism—[I’m sorry you haven’t received the support that is earnestly sought-after from your sister—it can be hard—that’s how it is for me—I’m the only vegan in my family—everyone else is SAD!—but what about your parents and friends, how do they feel—do you get what you pine for from them?]—and speaking of which, that book that was aforementioned in my original post, you should check it out—I think you’d really enjoy it—for I just concluded it today and have gained an enormous amount of insight that I will truly cherish deep down inside my heart—I now am eating for the purpose of spiritual health and social harmony—‘The World Peace Diet’.

Remember, be the living and breathing example—it will speak numbers!

And here, [at ‘30BaD’], we’ve got your back—I, and with everyone else . . . we will doubtlessly and endlessly support you! :^)

My sister is older than me, by 10 years; she's 28. Asking her to go vegan with me won't work; she's just finished a nutrition class and solidly believes that all she learned should from now on govern the food choices she makes. Her diet is a moderately healthy one (little to no junk food, lots of veggies (less fruits), but it includes meat, dairy and eggs. She's not one to be obsessed with those last three categories, but she does think they are essential - and she thinks eating meat is the circle of life.

I appreciate your detailed comment; ones like yours really lift my spirits at times when I need exactly that (like now; I'm actually in tears because I just had to defend veganism to such an extreme that I broke emotionally). My entire family is against me. My friends don't care about it at all.

I'll check out that book you recommended, thank you!! I'm not stopping, even though I feel like I have everything against me. Thank you SO MUCH again for being amazing support for me :)

Ha . . . I’ve lived through those days before—believing everything I was taught in the coursework I took at my university [but what immaterial it would be to post about such!]. I’m sure your sister would be glad to know that all of what one reads in her textbook [or is established in nutrition courses] has been deceitfully designed and influenced by the meat and dairy industry— the USDA—[which is very corrupt and money hungry] to make us believe what we’re doing and how we’re eating is actually normal and sane—when truthfully, it deadens one’s senses and consciousness and hardens their heart of compassion. It’s all part of our anciently old culture that is driving this earth into a death-like decline—a herding culture partly based around utter domination.

The last three categories, no, they’re not at all essential for human health—it will bar one's health. Let us think about it for a bit, critically, and analyze, logically—meat is filled with toxins and anguish galore [omitting the other foreign substances]—milk contains blood and puss cells [not to mention the other contaminants]—eggs are obviously high in fat and cholesterol [ect.].—Furthermore, they are acidifying and produce treacherous effects on the human body—which was never intended to consume animal products in the first place. Ask you sister to compare our anatomical and physiological features [which exhibit a pure herbivore] to that of a true carnivore/omnivore—it doesn’t match up. Now I’ve taken many nutrition courses in my day—I know what their guidelines and intentions are. And just because someone has taught you something, it doesn’t make what they taught is right, or that they know what in the heck they’re talking about—they’re just teaching/sharing to their students/to their clients what they were taught—what if what that teacher was taught was flatly wrong?—conundrum!

I will provide a fitting quote [as there are a sea of them] by Dr. Will Tuttle [the author of ‘World Peace’]:

“Our inherited meal traditions require a mentality of violence and denial that silently radiates into every aspect of our private and public lives, permeating our institutions and generating the crises, dilemmas, inequalities, and suffering that we seek in vain to understand and effectively address. A new way of eating no longer based on privilege, commodification, and exploitation is not only possible but essential and inevitable. Our innate intelligence demands it.”

And that “Circle of life” comment—aren’t all creatures destined and free to live out their own life purposes? Why must we deem ourselves as anthropocentric in the light of all earth’s species—the shameful hubris in that logic reeks tremendously? Don’t we all hope for equality, inclusion, kindness, and love? What if all that was cunningly and slyly stripped away from us—and all in less than an instant? When we exclude certain animals from this very mythos, we begin to lose ourselves in the paradigmatic framework setup by the profiteers of the animal herding culture [ranging from slaughterhouses to massive fish farms]—they want you to think a certain way—they want you to believe a certain way—and more importantly, they want you to eat a certain way!

Now not to overwhelm you at all, but I also recommend reading ‘The 80/10/10 Diet’—this could help defend your case for veganism and where you're ultimately headed with your diet.

Dr. Michael Klaper’s ‘A Diet For All Reasons’ is a good video to watch.

The same can be said about ‘The Best Speech You Will Ever Hear’ by Gary Yourofsky.

I wish you all the best in the world, Kasia. And feel free to PM me if you need to talk about something . . . anything . . . I will certainly try to help.

Glad he sees the value in philosophy and questioning things, also noted on his criticisms on possibly too controlling of a format/mods in the site, but the conclusions he came to are, well, from his own mouth come from a domestic terrorist Theodore J. Kaczynski..He concluded that ethics, law, and objective reality don't exist. I'd have to ask him, if that is objectively true, and/or if he believes we ought never use oughts, but I don't know that it would make any difference. Disturbing. He doesn't seem to understand that Kaczynski was an MK Ultra patsy victim under the influence of mind control and drugs, so not exactly the best source of info.

He said he himself went from a "butthurt scoundrel trying to grab onto every piece of power he can find while disguising it as being morally superior in order to feel better about himself"... to "someone who says I 'would be loyal only to myself — what I wanted out of life, not what society told me I should want". Good to think independently, but this is pretty extreme, rash and reactionary. Think he's just trying to distance himself from everything as much as possible so he can try to be objective, which is good, but hope he can see through the contradictory things in this approach sooner rather than later. He actually thinks relativism, which is contradictory and its consequent, nihilism, saved him. Scary. God bless him.

About Denise Menger, I believe T Colin Campbell directly responded to this and dealt with her objections, which largely have to do with her improper understanding on how research is done.

Some or many vegans may be guilty of some of the things he mentions, which aren't shared by just vegans, such as the idea of no killing at all, which I oppose for justified reasons (self defense, defense of an innocent from an aggressor, just war as opposed to illegal wars etc its murder that's wrong, not necessarily killing) but not all vegans do this or believe the same way. Seems like he's reacting to more of the tribalism aspect in veganism, or in pretty much any group, herd mentality, group speak, kind of thing out of anger and frustration in trying to cope with the health problems he believes veganism caused. I'd be ticked off if my teeth got wrecked too. My gum line did the opposite though, it used to recede on a meat/dairy sat diet, now they're healing up. He has some interesting points on how rebellion works as a dynamic and how people may get into veganism as far as psychological and moral reasons. This also seems to be a reaction against new age philosophy, which I totally get.

But things he says like "There is no wrong. It only depends on what consequences you want to have happen", or "First of all, why should I aim for constructive behavior in the first place? Am I obliged to do so for some reason? No. Second of all, it’s not as if life has some sort of intrinsic goal that we should strive towards. Life is a process, not a destination. I’ll do whatever the fuck I want," seems more so sociopathic and is pretty disturbing, the logical outworkings of Darwinism. For someone who doesn't believe in wrong and seems pretty committed to destruction and meaninglessness, why so angry if nothing is wrong?

He doesn't seem informed on the B12 issue, which is something everyone should be concerned with due to things being so sterile, having a depleted top soil and the damage our bodies experience from the sad diet, eugenics measures like GMOs and the poisoned environment in general. Am interested now in looking up the effects of having a B12 deficiency.

Lastly, if I was talking to someone about it, I'd just try to listen, repeat back to them what I think they're saying then instead of give them arguments, I'd rather form the argument as a question to put on them to think about and answer for you. Much less work for you and it allows them to not only hear what comes out of their mouth actually sounds like but also helps give them an opportunity to think through the issue for themselves. In the meanwhile, so as to not cause tension, just live the life, demonstrate the results so when someone asks, you can give an answer for what you're doing and why.

No problem. I could be wrong as I didn't follow how this all went when it happened as far as the back and forth at 30BAD, but it seems like he just feels really hurt and or rejected and just needs some unconditional love, hugs and support. Totally sucks your sister doesn't support you though. My family doesn't do that for me either, but am at least grateful to have gotten at least some of my friends to do it along with me. Thanks for saying that though. Hope it was helpful and that you can get the answers you need.